Business Chief ME+AFRICA Magazine November 2023 | Page 133

Guy Willner

Guy Willner

TITLE : CO-FOUNDER & CHAIRMAN COMPANY : IXAFRICA LOCATION : KENYA
Guy Willner – A worldrenowned Data Centre expert and entrepreneur , having invested in and founded a number of DC startups including in emerging markets over the last 25 years .
Mr . Willner founded IXEurope in 1998 and oversaw the company ’ s growth from a sole datacenter in London to a network of 14 datacenters located in four countries IXEurope was purchased by Equinix ( NASDAQ : EQIX ) for $ 555 million , and Mr . Willner remained as the President of Equinix ’ s European sector through June 2008 .
In 2018 , Mr . Willner co-founded IXAfrica , a hyperscale datacenter operator in Kenya that is projected to be the largest hyperscale datacenter campus in East Africa by 2025 . In 2022 Guy joined the Board of Elea Digital in Brazil . Mr . Willner holds a bachelor ’ s degree in engineering from Oxford Brookes University .
In 2022 Guy became an Advisor to Helios LLP in Digital Infrastructure with specific focus in the African Region .

“ I think we ’ re probably about a decade ahead of most of Europe ”

GUY WILLNER CO-FOUNDER & CHAIRMAN , IXAFRICA